Primary Activities and Value Creation
Healthcare is one of the fastest rising industries in the world, including Australia. However, making new products, going international or entering new markets have become challenging for this industry due to strict laws and regulations, and changing healthcare environment. In this context, this report has chosen the case study of Latureae Healthcare, located in Australia. A business environment analysis has been conducted to get an overview about the current situation of the industry. Moreover, Porter’s value chain model has been applied to evaluate the major activities and sub-activities in the Latureae business model. Finally, the report ends up by providing valuable recommendations to the company so that how they can enhance or the value offered to ‘customers.
Latureae’s aim is to become a leader in the healthcare sector through product development and innovations. In order to fulfill this aim, the organization uses The Product Leader Model. Using this model, Latureae is focused on delivering first-class, and advanced patient wellness services. This model helps the managers to emphasize on the specific healthcare needs that are either expensive or sophisticated. However, this model does not consider whole patient care, economical options and a large footprint (Kuehnl, Fürst, Homburg, & Staritz, 2017). The product and the brand are the core areas and the organization builds scale via technology like tele-health. Furthermore, this model relies on collaborations with other healthcare suppliers for referrals and new patients.
Utilizing technology to expand business and brand name, and to satisfy the needs and wants of all customers like supermarkets, specialist health food stores and health care professionals, is the primary activity of Latureae (Albarune, Farhat, & Afzal, 2015). The secondary activities of The Product Leader Model, undertaken by Latureae healthcare company comprise of Relationship building, Negotiation, and People Management.
The primary activity of Latureae involves using latest tools and technologies in order to provide improved and better products. For this to happen, the organization provides mentoring and training to enhance the skills of employees. This activity is closely linked to value creation as it supports the sustainable development along with the good health and well-being of the communities. The Product Leader Model considers this sub-activity valuable as it offers competitive advantage by broadening the market share for the company. Being a technology-savvy company, Latureae also contributes to improved communication between the members of development team. This primary activity carried out by the organization is also helpful in understanding the tech-trends in the market while promoting innovation (Kumar, & Rajeev, 2016). Technology is used by Latureae for cost reduction and keeping good track record of activities. The company has introduced electronic health records enabling patients’ home physician to easily pass on medical records worldwide. This not only improves efficiency but also helps to ensure delivery of stable care to the patient (Kim, Gaukler, & Lee, 2016).
Porter’s value chain model
Relationship Building is one of the secondary activities carried out by Latureae. The company attempts to create and maintain solid and long term relations with the employees and customers. Using The Product Leader Model, the organization extends its network, strengthens team building and rapport with the peers. This activity creates value by promoting better ways to live through motivation and eliminating conflicts. Another activity is negotiation that are like healthy conversations with the team members, with supervisors, with customers, and with other stakeholders (Huang et al., 2018). Latureae attempts to become a good negotiator and creates value by bringing win-win outcome. Another mot important activity is people management. The organization aims to create value using ‘Manager Tools’. These include education and mentorship, one to one meetings, effective hiring, and delegating roles and responsibilities.
The Porter’s value Chain Model was founded by Michael Porter who was the well known Harvard Economist. According to him, the value chain is described as a set of inputs, processes, and outputs that occurs to manufacture a product or service. This model consists of the entire chain of production from supply of raw materials to the manufacturing process, and delivery and distribution of the goods to the ultimate consumers (Rothaermel, 2015). By analyzing the value chain of a company, the areas can be pointed out where the greatest value is being contributed, costs are higher, and where the incompetence lies.
In context of Latureae Healthcare Company, it has been observed that the company has developed over time, resulting in high duplication of disconnected services, and suppliers in general. The value chain of this organization includes many activities similar to that of other industries (Sharan, Schroeder, West, & Vaccaro, (2015). These are producers, retailers, distributors, suppliers, professionals such as midwives, nurses, and financiers like health consumers.
Considering all these aspects of Latureae Porter’s Value chain suggests following six-point strategy:
- Managing care for the patients, instead of tools
- Determining the costs and outcomes for every patient in live-time
- Reimburse providers differently for care through bundled prices of care cycles (Hong, Shintaku, Shi, & Kim, 2017).
- Implementingcare delivery services with separate facilities
- Going beyond the confined nature of care delivery, and
- Developing an effective information technology platform
- Inbound Logistics: Latureae focuses on strengthening relationships with providers and focusing on all the activities required to accept, store, and distribute inputs.
- Operations: Latureae identifies the tasks needed to convert inputs into useful outputs that is, products and services (Hussain, Ajmal, Gunasekaran, & Khan, 2018).
- Outbound Logistics: Latureae identifies the functions required to assemble, store, and deliver the goods and services.
- Marketing and Sales: Latureae communicates with the buyers about products and services, influencing buyers purchasing behavior. This is done to gain the customer trust and loyalty, and maintain healthy relations with them in the long run.
- Service: Latureae carry out activities to make the product or service work successfully for the consumer post sales.
- Procurement: Latureae ensures procurement of inputs, or resources, for the accomplishment of organization’s objectives.
- Human Resource management: Latureae does all the activities such as recruitment, hiring, training and developing, compensation and (if necessary) dismissal or laying off employees (Hussain et al., 2018).
- Technological Development: Latureae uses tools, procedures, hardware, software, and technical knowledge in the company’s conversion of inputs into outputs.
- Infrastructure: Latureae meets out the organization’s needs and combining its different parts together, it consists of activities or divisions such as accounting, official, investment, planning, open affairs, management relations, general management and value assurance.
Conclusion
Due to increased complexities, and competition in the healthcare industry, it has become essential for companies to understand healthcare trends, track economic metrics, and adapt strategy accordingly. From the above discussions, it can be concluded that in spite of Latureae ‘s value chain being so distinctive from that of other healthcare companies, it is imperative for the organization to focus more on innovation and customer welfare. In nations like Australia, where the population is getting older, the absolute volume of care is required to be provided. If the company do not adopt new strategies, it would risk a remarkable drop in the quality of care being provided, along with the reduction in the customer base.
Conclusion
On the basis of above discussions, Latureae is recommended to focus on providing more value to the customers by making effective strategies such as differentiating the products and services, and increasing brand awareness. The organization should consider the perceptions of customers by analyzing the business through the customers’ eyes (Christopher, 2016). The management should analyze the target market and how the goods and services are delivering utility to the customers. Since Latureae’s major focus is on product innovation, it should be shifted to fulfilling the consumers’ needs and wants. The company should also build customer personas in order to have valuable insights into the existing and potential customers. This would help the organization to add value and retain customers. In addition to this, the organization should constantly work for improving the customer satisfaction. The proper feedback system should be maintained by the company through which customers’ responses can be received. This would allow the managers to keep finger on customers’ pulse and promote the brand identity in the marketplace.
In addition to this, the organization should also integrate the marketing models into the business strategies of customer value addition. One of the famous marketing tool can be Brand Essence Wheel, Four Cs model, and SWOT Analysis model (Porter, & Heppelmann, 2015). These tools would be helpful in building company’s value statement, determining the unique selling point, predicting the customer demands on the basis of identified market trends. The managers should communicate with the existing customers on regular basis so as to build an impressive experience for them. This is because companies with memorable customer experiences can easily influence consumers using online reviews, word-of-mouth referrals, and higher retention rates.
References
Albarune, A. R. B., Farhat, N., & Afzal, F. (2015). Valued supply chain for integrated hospital management: A conceptual framework. International Journal of Supply Chain Management, 4(3).
Christopher, M. (2016). Logistics & supply chain management. UK: Pearson.
Hong, P., Shintaku, J., Shi, Y., & Kim, S. C. (2017). Global Markets, Innovation Eco-System and Technology Infrastructure Development: Global Supply Chain Perspective. Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, 16(5), 483-486.
Huang, Y., Porter, A. L., Cunningham, S. W., Robinson, D. K., Liu, J., & Zhu, D. (2018). A technology delivery system for characterizing the supply side of technology emergence: Illustrated for Big Data & Analytics. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 130, 165-176.
Hussain, M., Ajmal, M. M., Gunasekaran, A., & Khan, M. (2018). Exploration of social sustainability in healthcare supply chain. Journal of Cleaner Production, 203, 977-989.
Kim, R. H., Gaukler, G. M., & Lee, C. W. (2016). Improving healthcare quality: A technological and managerial innovation perspective. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 113, 373-378.
Kuehnl, C., Fürst, A., Homburg, C., & Staritz, M. (2017). Toward a differentiated understanding of the value?creation chain. British Journal of Management, 28(3), 444-463.
Kumar, D., & Rajeev, P. V. (2016). Value chain: A conceptual framework. International Journal of Engineering and Management Sciences, 7, 74-77.
Porter, M. E., & Heppelmann, J. E. (2015). How smart, connected products are transforming companies. Harvard Business Review, 93(10), 96-114.
Rothaermel, F. T. (2015). Strategic management. Australia: McGraw-Hill Education.
Sharan, A. D., Schroeder, G. D., West, M. E., & Vaccaro, A. R. (2015). Understanding a value chain in health care. Journal of Spinal Disorders and Techniques, 28(8), 291-293.
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